Intense Focus?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about intense focus. For the last 3 weeks, I have been taking a May-Mester class. So I’ve been in a classroom from 1-5 everyday of the week.

Believe it or not, I actually liked the set up. It was intensely focused. There was no mucking around because we had so much to get through. But the class was still fun and a small group. We started out with 13 and ended with 8. Because it was a small group, I’ll walk away with several really good friends.

The Cons

The biggest con I see to the intensity attention to one project is how far behind I am on everything else. I have gotten very little work, journaling or email checking done. This is one major reason I love Basecamp*. I can check only that email and I am up-to-date on contractor work and what my clients need. Even as scary as it seems to have like 8,000 other unread emails. :S

The Pros

Pro #1- After today, I’m done. And I have an A.

I’m very ADD so I’ve taken this class several times. It loses my interest after the first few weeks and I fail. Using the intense version, I didn’t have as much option to stray away. The times I have taken it before there have been groups of 60+ so I think the small group helped me too.

Business View

Obviously I’ve gotten no work done during this 3 week class, but it occurred to me this morning since I’m already behind I should take the next 3 weeks and wrap up projects. I have 2 ebooks that I got ADD on and never finished. My book manuscript is 90% finished and I got distracted (partially by this class.)

As I mentioned in my Creative Scheduling post, I have a hard time settling down to a schedule of creating. So I was very surprised how easily I conformed to this class. I went into it thinking I would re bel against the daily schedule by the first of the second week.

I often change things like my schedule or where I work. So over the next few weeks, I’m going to experiment with hyper-focus to get things completed. One of things that I discovered while working with Molly Mahar is that I bounce around too much. I have a great idea, and I’m off like a greyhound. But I don’t follow the rabbit all the way around the track. I see something shiny and start a new race.

This experiment probably won’t help my blogging schedule but I think it will be interesting to see the final results.

Have you ever used hyper-focus to finish a project? I’m very interested in how you manage it.

Erica is an HR Business Strategist who works specifically with small businesses on delegation, team building, employee/contractor legal compliance, daily management and systems . The Invisible Office project evolved from her team management skills and the desire to help others love their teams.
She is a former corporate HR Manager, and ran her own virtual business team for 4 years. She has a BS in Organizational Leadership focused in HR. If you have a question about your team or need for help, contact her now.